Remembering Sapper Perie, VC

I've previously mentioned how much I enjoy spending time in old cemeteries. Today, after I dropped my wife off at Aberdeen airport, I drove into the city. I parked on the Spital (which, I was once reliably(!) informed, is so named because it's so steep, you can "stand at the top and spit all the way to the bottom"!) and explored St. Peter's graveyard. (Despite living in Aberdeen for 4 years, I don't think I've ever been in before; maybe I was less morbidly inclined in my student days!)

After happily browsing the graveyard - taking many pictures of avenues of leaning stones, statues, poignant floral tributes and eroded inscriptions - I was about to leave when I spotted this memorial beside the main gate. I was intrigued by the inscription's reference to this Victoria Cross winner from the Crimean War being "interred in stranger's ground"; when I looked it up later I found that he'd died in poverty and been interred in a pauper's grave. It wasn't until 2001 that he was finally commemorated with this stone.

You can read about him - and his act of gallantry, and the reason for the odd spelling of his name - here.

I'd started off by taking close-up shots of the stone, and noticing the little "In Remembrance" cross that had been left beside it, I thought I could maybe make a decent photo by including it. But the sun was out, casting tree shadows across the wall and the stone. So I thought I'd come back later, when the sun went behind clouds, to get a cleaner shot.

It was only when I stood up to go that I saw the dramatic shadow of the cross. (It's from the war memorial at the cemetery entrance.) I found the effect of seeing it there so starkly - an additional tribute to this forgotten hero - very moving.